Subscribe

About

Our newsletter reports and analyzes trending news from the political Right. From talk radio to social media to pop up news sites and self-made pundits, we do the work — you stay informed and engaged.

"I’ve periodically raised eyebrows among my readers by encouraging them to follow conservatives on social media, so as to escape our bubble and better understand the conservative narrative about the world. One way of doing that is to subscribe to a newsletter, Red for the Blue, which explicates what conservatives are saying to puzzled liberals."- Nicholas Kristof, New York Times Op-Ed Columnist

Good Friday to you. Since Trump’s visit to Helsinki, concern has grown over the security of our voting process from hacking. We will get into some of the politicized arguments about whom such hacking would favor but before we do we want to note that there is one sure way to not have your vote count: That is not to cast it.

Happy Thursday. Well, even by Trump's standards, his tweet storm this morning was a doozy. After denying for months that he knew anything about the hush payments made by his lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels, Trump admitted that he not only knew about it, but that he reimbursed Cohen through monthly retainer payments. This confession was, of course, previewed during last night’s interview between Sean Hannity and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. It seems to be a new legal strategy on the part of the president. His team argues that because Trump used his own money, it is not a campaign violation.

Good Thursday to you. We’ve been thinking a lot about the upcoming Women’s March and how it feels different one year later. A year ago, we -- and many among our families and friends -- took to the streets in droves. Back then, the march felt like an all-inclusive protest against Trump. It was both unifying and cathartic. This year, we don’t feel the urgency of public demonstration. The shock of Trump is over and to us it seems that the time to protest is over and the time to roll up our sleeves has come.

Good Thursday to you. Wednesday felt as if it might be a watershed moment to us. The passing of the tax bill may have been President Trump’s first legislative victory -- arguably a modest achievement for an administration whose party also controls Congress -- but across the conservative press it heralded a new acceptance of the president.

Good Thursday to you. Over the weekend, The Washington Post and The New York Times ran stories revealing that Special Counsel Robert Mueller demoted one of his investigators, Peter Strzok, last summer after he learned Strzok had sent anti-Trump texts to a colleague on his team. The Mainstream Media then largely left the story there -- a staffer misbehaved and then was reassigned. Done. In the alternative conservative media universe, however, it was as if a bomb went off.

Good Thursday. For all their complaints about the bias of the Mainstream Media, we couldn’t help but notice that for most of October the conservative press has been dining out on the hard-earned reporting of their so-called “fake news” cousins. The three stories that have dominated their pages all broke in traditional newspapers.

Good Thursday. Before we get into the news, we have some scheduling changes to discuss. We launched this newsletter in February. For us, it has been a labor of love, and we have been gratified to have earned so many devoted readers.

Good Thursday to you. We hope the solar eclipse gave you a brief respite in our ongoing national melee. Here, in New York, the eclipse barely made it to three-quarters full. Still, we enjoyed every minute. But as soon as it ended, we returned to the madness:

Good Thursday to you. All week we struggled with our decision to take time off and publish once weekly in August. Like everyone else, we watched the violence in Charlottesville in horror. Despite all the ink spilled on this topic, we still have our two cents to add. We’ve skipped the worst from the Right, like the attacks on Heather Heyer, the young woman mowed down by the car, and the conspiracy theories that the Nazi marchers were actually liberals who wanted to embarrass the Right. We’ve focused on how Trump’s arguments and reasoning actually reflected thinking we’ve seen for awhile in the Right media.

Happy Thursday. We would like to say that we’ve been enjoying our August in peace, but it is hard to relax with beach reading and BBQs when the president of the United States is threatening “fire and fury.” Around our dinner tables, there was debate over the inspiration for Trump’s word choice. One son insisted that Trump must have seen the latest installment of “Game of Thrones,” where dragons literally set the opposing armies afire. Another son insisted the reference must be to “The Lord of the Rings.” The parents feel the children may be crediting Trump with more literary knowledge than he actually has, however.

Happy Thursday. This week, we noticed a curious thing: It was sometimes hard to tell the Left and the Right apart. Was that really an editorial writer in The New York Times expressing concern that Stephen Bannon’s reign may be coming to an end, calling him “at times, a voice for sanity?” (And what about another member of the Times’s editorial staff criticizing the progressive Women’s March leaders for embracing hate?) Then there was National Review publishing one of the few critiques of Trump’s appointment of John Kelly -- yet another former General -- to his core administration.

Happy Monday. So just how worried are conservative commentators that the Trump presidency will come crumbling down and embarrass them all? We noticed that several were stretching for the language or analogies that might describe just how terrible the situation is: The Wall Street Journal’sPeggy Noonancomplained that Trump was “weak and sniveling” and, as the headline said, a “Woody Allen without the humor.” RedStatecalled the White House "the ninth circle of hell.” And National Review compared the new communications director Anthony Scaramucci to the profane, testosterone-driven maniac salesman played by Alec Baldwin in the David Mamet movie “Glengarry Glen Ross.” What a week!

Happy Thursday. Remember when summer was sleepy? So this newsletter will tackle the big issues of the day, but before we get started we want to mention that one author of the newsletter is the mother of an Eagle Scout and the other a wife of an Eagle Scout. We would like to say that neither blame the Boy Scouts for President Trump’s injection of politics into his address at the Jamboree in West Virginia this week and that both remain as proud as ever of their family members' accomplishment.

1. Exhaustion Equality

Dear Readers, we thought it was just us, Blue State inhabitants, who were suffering from Trump fatigue, but we are increasingly seeing signs the other side’s energy is flagging, too. It is not just that Fox’s ratings and Breitbart’s readership may be ebbing, it’s that other frontline troops on the Right may also be wearying. The conservative blogger Erick Erickson posted this call for help Wednesday on his website, The Resurgent:

Happy Monday. Russia is the story that just keeps on giving.

We have the latest reactions to everything from Donald Jr.’s escapades in collusion to our president’s suggestion that we share a cyber technology team with Russia. Also, do you know the difference between and a meteorologist and climatologist? If not, we explain below why it’s relevant. Finally, we profile The Donald -- not the man, the Reddit.

1. GOP Healthcare Blues

Facing a stalemate on Tuesday, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell delayed a vote on the Senate health-care bill until after the July 4 recess. While Mitch McConnell is known to be a master tactician, the Right media were skeptical that he could work his magic.

1. Forget the Medicaid Cuts. Be Nicer, Democrats.

Senate leaders finally unveiled their draft of the bill that would repeal Obamacare but it’s a bill that has been in trouble from the start. Just three Republican no votes would sink it, and it will be hard to make both conservative opponents and liberal opponents happy.